TALL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does tall mean? 

• TALL (noun)
  The noun TALL has 1 sense:

1. a garment size for a tall person

  Familiarity information: TALL used as a noun is very rare.

• TALL (adjective)
  The adjective TALL has 4 senses:

1. great in vertical dimension; high in stature

2. lofty in style

3. impressively difficult

4. too improbable to admit of belief

  Familiarity information: TALL used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TALL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A garment size for a tall person

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("tall" is a kind of...):

size (the property resulting from being one of a series of graduated measurements (as of clothing))

• TALL (adjective)

Comparative: taller   
Superlative: tallest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Great in vertical dimension; high in stature

Context example:

tall ships

Similar:

gangling; gangly; lanky; rangy (tall and thin and having long slender limbs)

in height (having a specified height)

leggy; long-legged; long-shanked (having long legs)

leggy; tall-growing ((of plants) having tall spindly stems)

long (of relatively great height)

long-stalked; tall-stalked (of plants having relatively long stalks)

stately; statuesque (of size and dignity suggestive of a statue)

tallish (somewhat tall)

Also:

high ((literal meaning) being at or having a relatively great or specific elevation or upward extension (sometimes used in combinations like 'knee-high'))

big; large (above average in size or number or quantity or magnitude or extent)

Attribute:

height; stature ((of a standing person) the distance from head to foot)

Antonym:

short (low in stature; not tall)

Derivation:

tallness (the property of being taller than average stature)

tallness (the vertical dimension of extension; distance from the base of something to the top)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Lofty in style

Synonyms:

grandiloquent; magniloquent; tall

Context example:

he engages in so much tall talk, one never really realizes what he is saying

Similar:

rhetorical (given to rhetoric, emphasizing style at the expense of thought)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Impressively difficult

Context example:

a tall order

Similar:

difficult; hard (not easy; requiring great physical or mental effort to accomplish or comprehend or endure)

Domain usage:

colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Too improbable to admit of belief

Synonyms:

improbable; marvellous; marvelous; tall

Context example:

a tall story

Similar:

incredible; unbelievable (beyond belief or understanding)

 Context examples 

"A tall figure, all in white with a veil over its face and a lamp in its wasted hand," went on Meg.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

We were ushered into a dim-lit drawing-room, where an instant later we were joined by a very tall, handsome, light-bearded man of fifty, the younger brother of the dead scientist.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My master—here he looked round him and began to whisper—is a tall, fine build of a man, and this was more of a dwarf.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Does your child seem much shorter - or much taller - than other kids his or her age?

(Growth Disorders, NIH)

The first of the tall trees was reached, and by the bearings proved the wrong one.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

An epithelial cell that is taller than it is wide.

(Columnar Cell, NCI Thesaurus)

He is taller than the Indian, not so tall as Gilchrist.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mr. Summerlee, the veteran Professor of Comparative Anatomy, rose among the audience, a tall, thin, bitter man, with the withered aspect of a theologian.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This is only because there were no tall women to compare her with, and because she has got a new gown, and you never saw her so well dressed before.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He wasn’t a tall, handsome, dark young man?

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)